Some embodiments described herein relate generally to radio channel assignment in wireless local area networks (WLANs), and, in particular, to methods and apparatus for distributedly assigning radio channels in a WLAN.
In a WLAN system, each access point (AP) needs to be assigned an operating channel from a limited number of available channels. In some known WLANs, channels can be randomly assigned to the APs. Such a randomized approach, however, typically does not detect or avoid specific cases where severe interference can occur between neighboring APs. Some other known WLANs implement a centralized network planning tool to generate a channel assignment plan. In such WLANs, however, the interference estimates are typically not based on live radio frequency (RF) data. Furthermore, as the number of APs increases, the complexity of computing the channel assignment plan can grow unreasonably large for the computer that hosts the centralized network planning tool. In some other known WLANs, each AP can separately examine its environment and choose a least-interfered-with channel. Such an approach, however, does not work well for a large WLAN because a previous decision made at an AP will typically be invalidated by its neighbor AP's new decision due to little cooperation among the neighboring APs.
Accordingly, a need exists for a distributed processing method for optimally assigning radio channels in a WLAN.